Some pedestrians who use the McDougall Hill stairs linking downtown to the river valley are worried about their safety.

In May, a 25-year-old man was stabbed to death on a landing halfway down the stairs next to the Hotel Macdonald.

Later in the month, a 28-year-old woman was walking to work around 8 a.m. when a man attacked her from behind, pulling her to the ground near another set of stairs.

Four men heard her shouts and rushed to the scene. They held down the suspect until police arrived.

The woman received a few bumps and bruises.

Police spokeswoman Clair Seyler said, despite those incidents, the river valley is considered a low crime area because of all of the foot traffic.

Police regularly patrol the stairs, she said.

However police and the city are working together to identify segments of the stairs with overgrown vegetation. The city will cut back some of the bush to provide better visibility.

That's a good thing in the mind of local resident Shirley Hansen.

Hansen said she never walks alone on the stairs. She said there are often people hanging around the stairs, and too many places for them to hide.

Cutting down some of the overgrown trees will help, she said.

"It's not so much a hiding spot for everybody if [they were] cut lower," Hansen said.

"They can still keep the scenery, make the city look nice but they can improve it slightly so that there aren't people hiding back there."

Bonnie Fermanuik, an urban forester with the city, said she's meeting with police to review potential trouble spots.

"We are working with the [police] where we can and going out and evaluating the sites and doing selective removal and selective pruning," she said.

Fermanuik said there has to be a balance though. Those same bushes and trees that might create hiding spots have root systems that keep the sloping ground stable.